It is possible to create a live install CD of Mint 14 for non-PAE computers. I followed the tutorial onhttp://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/918and remastered the Cinnamon edition with the Ubuntu Precise kernel 3.2.0 for my two laptops with the Pentium M 715 processors. I haven't tested it for a long time, but for the present it works without problems with 512 MB RAM.

Sorry to get back this old topic, but I'm having a quite similar problem...

I've been running Ubuntu on my old Thinkpad T42 for a while, and I wanted to install Linux Mint instead (faster, better, stronger, ... hm sorry ^^). Of course I got the "non-PAE" issue, and thanks to google, I found this this topic. What is a bit weird is that I'm actually running the last Ubuntu (Quantal Quetzal), and it does work... why, I can't say. as far as I've read on the internet, it shouldn't. I got it from upgrading from the last version (and a long list of version before), it might work on pure luck, or maybe not... There is a risk that it might "break" with a future upgrade...

I'm wondering what would be the best to do now. I definitely want to keep my old laptop, at least for a couple of years (it seems to work better that some recent laptops I've seen, it has a very comfortable 4:3 screen that cannot be found now), so "buying a new laptop" is not an issue. I'm just wondering what you would do in my case:- Try to install Linux Mint 14 with the patch explained in a previous post? I'm wondering if this is a good solution, especially if I have to be careful each time I have to install a new kernel (I'm sure I will forget one day)- Install Linux Mint 13, which is a LTS, supported until 2017, that would give me some time to think about it (and maybe I'll have a new laptop then)- Install Linux Mint 13, and trying to upgrade to 14. Risky, but what if it works "by pure luck" as in my case?- Install Linux Mint Debian Edition or some other distribution? I'm not particularly afraid of a more "geeky" version of linux, but... would it be as stable ? And I'm used to the ubuntu way of working, I don't know exactly what this would change...- Keep my ubuntu and hope that it will still work for a while?- Something else I haven't thought about?

I am not sure which option is the best, but I use Mint 14 with a non-PAE kernel during one month, and when I do automatic package upgrades, it never wants to upgrade the kernel packages.

From packages.ubuntu.com, Precise, I dowloaded packages linux-image-3.2.0-38-generic_3.2.0-38.61_i386.deb ,linux-headers-3.2.0-38_3.2.0-38.61_all.deb and linux-headers-3.2.0-38-generic_3.2.0-38.61_i386.deb . Then I followed the tutorial on http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/918 . During the tutorial, from a terminal outside the chroot, I copied the new Linux kernel DEB package (linux-image) and the two new kernel headers DEB packages (linux-headers and linux-headers-generic) into the chroot.

Then from a terminal outside the chroot:mount --bind /dev /<path-to-chroot>/dev